this life is called the blood because 〈◊〉 contained or carried in the blood Gen. 9.4 Further it is 〈◊〉 observable that the Hebrewes call the Body seperated from 〈◊〉 soule or a dead corps Nephesh Numb 5.2 c. 9.10 c. 19.11 Hag. 2.14 Though the life be quite gone out departed from the carkasse or body of a dead man yet that dead body is called life or soule to note that it shall live againe and that the soule shall returne unto it The mistery of the Resurrection from death was implied in the name of the dead Wee find also that the Heathens called a dead body a soule possibly from some glimpse of the resurection We lay up a soule in the grave saith the Poet. Animamque sepulchro condimus But how is this worke put into Satans hand The saving of his life What is Satan become a saviour what salvation can we expect from him whose name is Apollyon and Abaddon Rev. 9.11 both which signifie a destroyer Shall we send to the Wolfe to save the Sheepe or to the Vulture to save the Dove Destruction is the delight of Satan and it is his way as he hath no hope to be saved himselfe eternally so no will to save others temporally Observe then That here to save life notes only a sparing from death not a delivering from destruction but a forbearing to destroy Satan saved his life negatively that is he did not take it away he can not save positively or restore that which was ready to perish he doth not save as a deliverer but as a murtherer who would kill his brother but cannot He saves not for want of will but for want of power when he is forced to spare his nature is to devoure This devouring Lyon hunts for the pretious life even when God saith Save his life It may be questioned here Why Satan for that is implyed desired so to destroy the life of Job God would never have limited and chained him up but that Satan had a mind to suck his blood or afflict him unto death These two reasons may be given why Satan would have his life The one might be this Because it was a thing doubtfull with him though he bragged much of it whether he should attaine his end or no to make Job curse God when therefore he saw he could not overcome his spirituall life it would have bin some revenge to him to destroy his naturall life As some wicked ones his agents when by all their threats or flatteries they cannot make a 〈◊〉 sin which is to destroy his spirituall life their revenge breakes 〈◊〉 against his naturall life to destroy that This is the method of persecution first to attempt the death of the soule by drawing or terrifying unto sin and if they faile of that then death is inflicted on the body Or againe in the second place he being doubtfull in himselfe though he made no doubt in words whether his plot would be successefull to make Job curse God he I say doubting this designe might not draw him to sin resolved to take away his life that so Job might never have told tales of his victory or have reported his conquest to the world At least by his death he might obscure the businesse and bury it with some slander saying that Job died with discontent and griefe that he blasphemed God when he died that he wished for death and could not hold out any longer Much like that device of some Jesuits who have blowne it abroad that our most zealous opposers of Romish errours whom they could never move either by writing or disputing while they lived have yet recanted all when they dyed Wherefore least Satan should have drawen a curtain over the glory of Jobs victory by aspersing him after his death the Lord saith Save his life Job shall survive his troubles that matters may come to light and a true report be made and left upon record both of thy implacable malice and enmity and of his invincible patience and sincerity And this may lead us yet further to consider why God was so carefull of that precious part his life For some may say Had it not been glory to God and honour to Job like that of Martyrdome if he had died under the hand of Satan holding fast his own integrity blessing God even unto death I grant this but yet God knew that the saving of his life would be more advantagious both to himselfe and his Job for those ends wherefore he saith Save his life destroy him not First thus God intended to make Job a Monument of mercy as well as a Monument of suffering he intended to set him up to all the world as one in whom they might behold the goodnesse of God in raising up mixt with his wisdome in casting down that men might learn hope from Job as well as patience from Job Therefore saith God Save his life I have somewhat else to do with him I will raise him up again and in him an everlasting Monument both of his patience in suffering and of my own power in restoring Indeed if he had died in the conflict and left his bones in the field he had been a wonderfull example of constancy but he had not been such an example of mercy if his life had not been saved There may be this in it too Save his life saith God I will have him preserved in this combate his courage and carriage in it is my delight God loveth to see his people holding out tugging and continuing in such assaults and temptations If any thing in the world gives delight to God this is the thing that delighteth him The Heathen thought this the sport of their gods Seneca in his Book of Providence speaking of Cato and other gallant Romane spirits saith the gods delighted to look upon them in their conflicts with fortune To see them wrastle with some great calamity with some great danger was such a spectacle as would draw off Jupiter from his greatest businesse It is a most certain truth that the most true God doth love and delight to see his children wrastling with some great calamitie to see a poor man man who is but flesh and bloud wrastling with principalities and powers with the devill and powers of darknesse this is a sight that God himself as we may so speak rejoyceth in When Abraham had finished that great combate about sacrificing his sonne he calleth the place Jehovah-jireh the Lord will see or the Lord doth see the Lord doth behold as if that had been a sight which God himselfe came down to look upon As when some great man or strange shew passeth by we goe out to see it so God cometh down upon mount Moriah to see a sight And what was it To see Abraham in that great temptation assaulted and overcomming Here was a spectacle for the great Jehovah and therefore he cals the place Jehovah-jireh the Lord hath seen I doubt not but this place
upon the earth must needs lye out of the common course And what their condition is is such a secret as we cannot understand but by enjoying it Againe from that particular expression in that he saith I should have slept We may observe That as death it is the rest of the whole man so death it is the sleepe of the body So you find it often in the Scripture Our friend Lazarus sleepeth saith Christ when he was dead Joh. 11. And the Apostle 1 Thes 4.13 I would not have you ignorant concerning those which sleepe that is concerning those who are dead Lighten mine eyes saith David lâ—st I sleepe the sleepe of death or as the Hebrew Lest I sleepe death Psal 13.3 And hence the grave is called a bed Isa 57.2 The righteous are taken away c. they shall enter in to peace they shall rest in their beds When a righteous man dies or is taken away he is but gone to bed Therefore we call those places where the dead are laid up and buried dormitories or sleeping places Both the Greek and Latine words meete in the same signification Some of the Ancients were of opinion that this sleepe tooke hold of and seaz'd upon all man namely upon his soule as well as upon his body Asserting that the soule is in a sleepe or slumber that is that the soule from the time of its disunion from the body untill the resurrection lyes still without any motion or operation I giant that many operations of the soule doe cease when it parteth from the body There are some acts of the soule which are organicall and there are other acts that are inorganicall or immateriall The organicall acts that is whatsoever the soule acts by the members of the body those acts I say must needs cease but the soule can act of it selfe without the assistance of the body as we may collect by many experiments while our bodies and soules are joyned together How often doe we find our soules at worke when our bodies lie still and doe nothing when sleepe binds up all our sences and shuts up the windowes of the body so close that we can neither heare nor see yet then the soule frames to it selfe and beholds a thousand various shapes and heares all sorts of sounds and voices then the soule sees and the soule heares the soule deviseth and the soule discourseth the soule greeves and the soule rejoyceth the soule hopes and the soule feares the soule electeth and the soule refuseth All this the soule doth in dreames and visions of the night when deepe sleepe falls upon man So also in extasies and ravishments the body is as it were laid by as uselesse and uninstrumentall to the soule I knew a man in Christ about fourteene yeares agoe so the Apostle Paul saith whether in the body I cannot tell or out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth 2 Cor. 12.2 As if he had said I was lost as to my body I could not tell what I was I did not feele my selfe yet he had mighty operations in his soule his spirit wrought strangely and then tooke in such revelations of God and from God as his bodily organs could never fashion into words or represent by speech He heard unspeakeable words which it is not lawfull or possible for man to utter The soule hath an eare to heare such words as the body cannot find a tongue to expresse So the Apostle John in his divine ravishments I was in the Spirit upon the Lords day As for his body that was as to that businesse laid by and suspended as uselesse in that day and his spirit called up to that angelicall worke the receiving of visions and revelations from on high And among other things which John saw he saw under the Altar the soules of them that had beene slaine for the word of God and for the testimony which they held These soules were not asleepe though their bodies were for they cried with a loud voice saying How long O Lord Holy and true doest thou not judge and avenge our blood c. Rev. 6.9 10. From all these texts and experiences we may conclude that the soule wakes while the body sleepes that sleepe of death And the death of the body is called a sleepe First Because as sleepe so death brings the body to rest as was observed in the former point Secondly Naturall sleepe is not perpetuall we sleepe and wake againe so though the body lye in the grave yet death is but a sleepe the man shall awake and rise againe Thirdly As a body asleepe can easily be awaked and called up by the power of man so the body when it is dead can with infinitely more ease be raised by the power of God It is but a call from Heaven and we awaken out of the dust God can beyound all comparison more easily awaken us from that dead sleepe of death then we can awaken one another from the lightest slumber There are two questions which I shall propound and endeavour to resolve upon the whole matter of this context First We find Job complaining because things were not otherwise ordered about him he is troubled because he was borne or because he was not cast away in the birth for then it had been better with him he had beene asleepe and quiet he was troubled things were with him as they were Hence it may be questioned Whether it be lawfull for us to wish or to desire that had not come to passe which we see come to passe And are we not bound to rest satisfied with the present and fore-past dispensations of God and so be content with the things that are or with things as they are For this I say in generall such wishes or desires are not sinfull It is not absolutely sinfull to wish that not to be which is Nay some things which are ought to be wished they had not bin and it is a sin not to wish they had not been As those things that are displeasing to God provocations to the eyes of his glory things that are dishonourable to God we ought to wish that such things had never been God himselfe wisheth in that manner Psal 81.13 O that my people had hearkned unto me and Israel had walked in my wayes They did not walke in his wayes he wisheth they had he desireth they had been better more holy and more obedient then they were To wish that a thing had not been out of a tendernesse that God should be offended by sin is not only lawfull but very commendable But to wish things otherwise then they are as murmuring against and misliking Gods administration or out of a tendernesse because we suffer is not only sinfull but abominable When our wills rise up against the will of God when we cannot be contented to be what God will have us to be and to suffer what God would have us suffer when we who should learne to be content in every
this O death how sweet art thou to a man that is bitter in his soule It often falls out that to die is but a short affliction but affliction many times is a long and a continued death a frequent death as the Apostle speakes of his afflictions in deaths often 2 Cor. 11.23 That there is a bitternesse in death the speech of Agag implies 1 Sam. 15. Surely the bitternesse of death is past Yet while a man as lamenting Jeremie complaines Lam. 3.19 Remembers his afflictions and his misery the wormewood and the gall that is his afflictions and misery more bitter then gall and wormewood his sense overcomes his judgement to conclude that there is a pleasantnesse in that bitter thing which wee call death Secondly observe That As death finds many before they looke for it so some looke for death and cannot find it How many are there whom death surprizes before they are aware and seizeth upon them when they thinke not of it when-as others are expecting and longing and gaping and gasping after death and they cannot meete with it it cometh not Indeed it is a great deale better for a man to expect death when it cometh not then to have death come upon him when he expects it not Some are calling for death crying out for death before they know how to die before they know how to live yea before they know why they lived It were well for such if they might loose their longing and long for death long enough before it cometh for upon the matter poore soules they long for Hell while they long for death and while they are hastning from that life and misery which will quickly have an end they are plunging into that death and misery which will never end Thirdly observe As death is a punishment to most so not to die is a punishment to some Job speakes of it as of an affliction upon such they long for death and it cometh not Death is an affliction to all it is a punishment to all unbeleevers a punishment with a sting And as all wicked men are punished with death so some of them are punished with this that they for the present cannot die Rev. 9.6 In those dayes men shall seeke death and shall not finde it and shall desire to die and death shall flee from them It is laid as their punishment that they should live and as an affliction beyond all their afflictions that then they could not die They are in a sad condition who can have no remedy or cure of their troubles but death but how sad is their condition who cannot obtaine that remedy It is like the punishment of the damned in Hell they shall long for death but it will not come and they shall ever seeke for death but shall never find it No wicked man did ever part so unwillingly with his soule when he died as he will unwillingly meet with it when he riseth againe And as the first death doth part soule and body unwillingly so the second death keepeth soule and body together unwillingly They have a tast of this misery in this life whose soules are truly said to be imprisoned in their bodies And O how desirous are they to dig down these mud-walls and make an escape but cannot Fourthly observe It is an affliction to nature to be debarred of any thing it desireth how destructive soever it be unto it It is in one sense a naturall desire to long for death and yet death is the destruction of nature A man under distempers of body in a disease a Fever c. is often troubled and grieved because he cannot have those things which will hurt him He longs for such meates and drinkes as given him would kill him and yet a deniall angers him The hope of death deferred will make the heart sick and when the desire death desired comes it is as a tree of life Griefe ariseth from the unsatisfaction of our desires and therefore though the thing had which we desire will undoe us yet the not having it doth afflict us Which long for death and it cometh not and they dig for it more then for hid treasures Take somewhat from this latter branch and they dig for it more then for hid treasure Assoone as ever Job had exprest their longing desire after death you see presently he tells us that they dig for death From this observe That where desires are true they presently produce endeavours He that longs for a thing will labour for it they are digging presently Prov. 18.1 Through desire a man having separated himselfe intermedleth with all wisedome If it be death a man desireth he will be endeavouring after it There are some velleities listlesse wishings and wouldings which produce no endeavours but true desires are ever active naturall desires are seconded with naturall endeavours and so spirituall desires with spirituall endeavours If a man desire death he will dig for it surely then he that desires Christ and longs for eternall life will be digging for the enjoyment of them Observe further That proportionably to the strength of our desires is the strength and earnestnesse of our endeavours As reall desire causeth reall indeavour so strong desires cause strong endeavours It was not a bare desire but an earnest longing as was cleared in opening the words And it is not a bare labour but hard labour digging is strong labour A meere naturall man whose desires after sin are strong and vehement acts sin with equall vehemency The holy Ghost saith he doth evill as he can that is to utmost his canning or ability He drawes iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as it were with cart-ropes He doth evill saith another Scripture Mich. 7.3 with both hands greedily To doe a thing with both hands notes the greatest endeavour As when the Pharisees are said not to touch the burdens which they laid on others with their little finger it notes their refusall of the least endeavour Math. 23.4 So a spirituall heart having his desires turned heaven-ward he diggs for heavenly treasure every day and gives diligence to make his calling and election sure They who have strong desires after Christ labour strongly after Christ So they are exprest Pro. 2.4 where Solomon speakes of wisedome which is Christ and all that is Christs If thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasures Such is the search and endeavour that ought to be after Christ and such it will be if there be true and great desires after Christ Thirdly In that he saith they dig for it as for hid treasure We may observe That the best things are hardest to come by If you will have treasures you must digge for them you may have pibble stones flints above ground but treasures lie deepe And in proportion the better every thing is the more digging it requireth And the best things ought to be most digg'd for They that will have the great blessing must
creature excellence This fire being a strange and extraordinary fire is said to be the fire of God This fire of God is conceived to have been some terrible flash of lightning which in a moment destroy'd and consumed the sheepe and shepheards And this is more probable because it is said to fell downe from heaven that is out of the aire for so often in Scripture heaven is put for the aire the middle region of the aire where Satan hath great power therefore he is called the Prince of the aire and he can doe mighty things command much in that Magazin of Heaven where that dreadfull Artillery which makes men tremble those fiery Meteors thunder and lightning are lodged and stored up Satan let loose by God can doe wonders in the aire He can raise stormes he can discharge the great Ordnance of Heaven thunder and lightning and by his art hee can make them more terrible and dreadfull then they are in nature If the skill and art of man can heighten naturall things then much more the skill of Satan I doubt not but many fearefull impressions are made in the ayre by devils carrying nature by Gods permission farre above it's owne course and these are properly marvels or wonders such as the Magitians wrought in Egypt by the helpe of Satan for miracles are quite out of the devils spheare But he can doe wonders and such was this fire falling from Heaven c. A marvell or wonder is nature mightily improv'd a miracle is nature totally cross'd if not contradicted Observe this for the nature of that fire the effect of it followes in the next words It hath burnt up the sheepe and the servants and consumed them The word in the Originall is It did burne them and eat them up Fire is a devouring element Devouring fire as before a devouring Sword these were devouring judgements upon Job Yet it doth not necessarily inferre that the sheepe were all burnt to ashes but that the sheepe were all killed by that flame of lightning that came from Heaven for it is said of Nadab and Abihu of which we spake before that a fire went out from God and did consume them it is the same Originall word that is here in the Text A fire went out from God and did eat them up yet wee know their bodies were not consumed for they were carried out to their buriall and their garments were upon them So that this consuming doth not note the burning of things to ashes but a striking of them to death it is a devouring fire because it is a destroying fire it takes away life and thus lightnings kill rather by piercing and penetrating than by consuming and devouring But now here it will be questioned for the further opening of this why Satan chooses thus to consume the sheepe with fire why doth he not rather use spoylers to take them away He could doubtlesse have got the Sabeans to have fetched away the flocks of sheepe as well as the droves of greater cattell he could have procured them easily why then doth he cause fire from Heaven to come down the fire of God to consume them I answer his reason for this was to put the greater sting into the affliction He would not have the sheepe taken away after the same manner that the Oxen and Camels were that he might aggravate Jobs trouble and provoke him if he could to be passionate against God yea and for that was his great designe to blaspheme God therefore he procures fire from Heaven to fall upon the sheepe thereby to beget an opinion in Job that God was now become his enemy as well as man When we suffer from man then the afflicted soule flies to God makes his complaint and moane to him as doubtlesse Job did when he heard of those cruell Sabeans and what they had done but lest Job should resort in his thoughts to Heaven and comfort himselfe in God againe the next messenger telleth him that God is his enemy too that the fire of God is fallen upon the sheepe an extraordinary fire as if hee should say God fighteth against thee as well as the Sabeans Alas now to whom should Job make his moane That speech of Eli concerning sinne may well be applyed to suffering If one man sinne against another the Iudge shall judge him but if a man sinne against the Lord who shall intreat for him So if a man suffer from men he may goe unto God but if God himselfe doe appeare to be an enemy and to fight against us to whom shall we goe Indeed Iob knew how to goe to God though he did appeare as an enemy but that is the greatest straight and to doe thus notes the greatest spirituall both skill and strength Hence observe That Satans great designe against the people of God or any servant of God is to provoke them to ill thoughts of God to perswade them that God is their enemy to bring the love and good will of God into suspition therefore he causeth this great fire and it is like formed the servants language in that cutting phrase The fire of God is fallen upon the sheepe Thou canst not put this off as thou mightest doe the other and say this is but the malice or the covetousnesse of the Sabeans that rob'd me of my goods and slew my servants No thou shalt see now that God himselfe is angry Heaven frownes upon thee the fire of God from Heaven consumes thee Turne over the records of all antiquity and see whether God ever dealt thus with any but those cursed Sodomites upon whom God rained fire from Heaven Thou who commest so neare them in the punishment hast reason to judge thy selfe not farre behind them in sin Secondly observe Those afflictions are most grievous wherein God appeares to be against us The malice oâ— devils and the rage of men may be endured but who can stand before God when he is angry If God doth but with-draw his comforts the soule sinkes under smallest tryals how then can it stand if God should reveale his wrath against us when we are in great tryals It may here be questioned why the sheepe were consumed with fire rather than any other of his cattell rather then any other of his substance There are two things in that First the sheepe were used in Sacrifice When the daies of their feasting were ended Job offered Sacrifice and the sheepe chiefly were offered in Sacrifice Now Satan by consuming the sheepe hoped to fasten this upon Iob if possibly he could that God was angry with his very Sacrifices God was angry with his services As if he should say Doest thou thinke that the offering up of thy sheepe in Sacrifice hath beene pleasing to God Certainly if the fire of those Sacrifices had delighted God if he had smelt a savour of rest in them as he is said to have done when Noah offered Sacrifice after the flood Gen. 8.21 he would never have sent a fire
And that this was a greater affliction then any of or then all the former is so cleare that I shall not need to stay long in the confirming of it only to quicken the point a little take notice of the greatnesse of it in 5 respects First It appeareth without controversie to be the greatest of all because it was upon his children a mans children are more then all that he hath in the world a mans children are himselfe every child is the father multiplyed A sonne is the fathers bowells and therefore when Paul wrote to Philemon concerning Onesimus whom saith he I have begotten in my bonds sc to the faith of Christ Receive him who is mine owne bowels A spirituall sonne is the very bowells of a Minister he doth but allude to a naturall sonne a sonne is the very bowels of the father this affliction reached unto the very bowels of Job himselfe Satan had no leave to afflict the body of Job and yet you see he afflicts him in his very bowels Secondly The greatnesse of it is seene in this his children were all taken away To loose all our children is a grievous as to loose an only child Now that is made a cause of the highest sorrows Zach. 12.10 They shall mourne for him as one that mourneth for an only sonne that is they shall mourne most bitterly Now as the measure of mercies may be taken by the comforts which they produce so we may take the measure of an affliction by the sorrow which it produceth And that is the greatest affliction which causeth the greatest sorrow Thirdly It was a further greatning of the affliction that they were all taken away suddenly Had death sent them summons by its usuall messenger sicknesse but a day before to prepare themselves it had much sweetned the bitternesse of this cup but to heare they were dead before he knew they were sick yea when he thought they were merry and rejoycing how sad was this Fourthly That they died a violent death by a mighty wind casting the house downe upon them Had they dyed in their beds though suddenly it had bin some ease to the Fathers heart violent death hath an impression of wrath upon it And men can hardly judge well of those who fall by such judgements Suspition will arise if censure passe not from better men then Barbarians if they see a viper on the hand of a Paul Act. 28. It is more then probable from our Saviours question that those eighteene upon whom the Tower in Siloe fell and slew them were commonly supposed greater sinners or sinners above all men that dwelt in Hierusalem Luk. 18.4 Fifthly They were all taken away when they were feasting and this did exceedingly aggravate the affliction upon Job that his children were all destroied feasting for you know what the thoughts of Job were concerning his children at their feasting after they had done he offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all for he said it may be my sonnes have sinned and cursed God in their hearts Now at this time when Satan knew that Job was most solicitous lest his children should sinne at that time doth he destroy them that so their father might be afflicted with the thought that his children died unreconciled to God that they died with sinne upon them unrepented of That they died a double death death at once seasing upon both soule and body This then was a further degree of Satans malice to wound vexe and grieve the spirit of Job unto the utmost How sadly and pissionatly did David lament Absoloms death Some conceive this was the head of the Arrow that pierced him because he feared his sonne died in a sinfull condition he was suddenly taken away in his rebellion unreconciled either to God or man Such a thought might fall upon Jobs heart my children are suddenly dead and dead feasting it may be they forgot God it is possible they sinned in feasting and cursed God in their hearts Alas my children died before they could so much as thinke of death I feare they are gone rejoycing to Hell where they shall weepe for evermore Doubtlesse Satan did or might fasten such a temptation upon his heart who was so tender of his childrens soules and so fearfull of their sinning in feasting So then it is cleare from all these particular considerations that this was the greatest affliction Be prepared then not onely to receive another affliction but to receive a greater affliction and have thoughts of receiving the greatest affliction at the last Satan will come with his strongest assaults when thou art weakest At the time of death when he seeth he can doe no more but that he must then doe it or never doe it then thou shalt be sure to have the strongest temptations It should therefore stirre up the people of God still to looke for more and more strength to beare afflictions and tentations and to beg from Christ the greatest strength at last because they may justly feare the greatest temptations at last If as Satan doth greaten his temptations Christ doth greaten his assistance we shall be able to beare them and be more then conquerours over them So much of this fourth charge in the generall I shall now open the words more particularly for those in the 18th verse I shall not need to say any thing of them they have been handled before at the 13th verse which runnes thus And there was a day when his sonnes and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their Eldest brothers house The 19th verse describes the manner of this tryall And behold there came a great wind from the wildernesse c. And behold Ecce or behold in Scripture ever notes more then ordinary matter following 1. Great things call for attention 2. That which is sudden and unexpected calls us to behold it 3. Rare things things seldome seen invite all to see and wonder at them Here is matter of admiration What God threatens in the Law he seemes to fulfill upon Job I will make their plagues wonderfull There is no Ecce prefixed to any of the former three affiictions but this as being the most strange and terrible comes in with an Ecce And behold There came a great wind It was a wind and a great wind that came The wind is elegantly said to come as the Sunne out of his chamber and rejoycing as a strong man to runne a race Psal 19.5 Hence the word which the Latines use for the wind is derived from a word that signifies to come Because the wind comes with force and violence The wind in the nature of it is an exhalation arising from the earth drawne upwards by the power of the Sunne and other Heavenly bodies but meeting and conflicting a while with the cold of the middle region of the ayre is beaten backe againe And being so light that naturally it cannot descend and so resisted that it cannot peaceably ascend it takes a
also of Jobs triall might have born the same name As the Lord will be seen in the mount of our afflictions to provide for us so he will see us in the mount of our afflictions to please himself The Psalmist describeth God looking down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand that did seek God Psal 53.2 Surely then if any do seek God much more if they suffer from him or for him in a holy manner he will look downe from Heaven to see them Thirdly I will note that as another ground why God would have his life spared because he had much use of him when he was in that condition full of sores and scabs A godly man is never in such an estate but God hath some use of his life Therefore saith God Save his life though he be full of sores or rather from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot one continued sore though he be a most lamentable creature and cannot wag hand or foot in any service of man yet spare his life for he may thus stand me in great stead and do me more service then many thousands who as we speake are sound winde and limbe and have not one blemish upon the whole body A godly person is ever usefull to God though he cannot stirre a limbe yet his life may be usefull to God whereas a wicked man though strong and healthy though furnisht with outward comforts and accommodations is altogether unserviceable he will not doe God a stroake of worke though he have received great pay and wages afore-hand A godly man will serve God in and by his poverty in and by his sicknesse when diseased when distressed when nothing is to be seen upon him but scabs and boiles Grace will work through all the defects and decayes of nature And when the life of nature can scarce move one member of the outward man upon the earth the life of grace moves all the members of the inward man toward Heaven Though the outward man perish yet the inward man is renewed day by day 2 Cor. 4.16 Lastly God saved his life as a punishment and vexation upon Satan The Talmudists are vouched to affirme that it was not so grievous to Job to be afflicted in his body as it was to Satan when God restrained him from destroying his life As if a man should be permitted to crack the glasse but he must not spill the wine That his life must be kept whole in him was Satans wound It is a torture to malice not to do the utmost mischiefe So much for the clearing of these words Behold he is in thine hand but save his life From the Lords grant observe first That God doth oftentimes give up the bodies of his faithfull servants to be abused and tormented by Satan and his instruments He is in thine hand thou maiest do with him what thou wilt on this side death Touch his flesh and his bone or touch his flesh to the bone strike as hard wound as deep as thou canst It is said Revel 2.10 that Satan should cast some of them that is of the servants of God into prison God gave up their bodies to irons and fetters to the stocks and shackles He permits those bodies which are Temples of the holy Ghost to be thrust into dungeons and the chambers of death Therefore doe not thinke it strange to see the bodies of the children of God put into cruell and bloudy hands though they are vessels of honour and Temples of the holy Ghost yet God may give up those bodies to be defiled and polluted with the outrages of the most abominable wretches consider what the Apostle speakes of the Jewish Martyrs Heb. 11. How were their bodies abused and mangled They were stoned they were sawn asunder they were slaine with the sword they wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins being destitute afflicted tormented of whom the world was not worthy Their bodies had not a house to dwell in nor garments to put on in whose soules God himselfe dwelt and had put upon them the garment of Salvation Who is able to expresse yea to conceive what strange inventions of crueltie have been brought into the world to vex and torment the bodies of the Saints The stories of the Primitive times are full but the fathers of the Romish inquisition have exceeded them all Satan here invents a strange disease as an engine to torture Jobs body in that he mixt the rack and the wheel the sword and the saw the fiery gridiron and the boyling oil The pain of a thousand deaths was heightn'd in that malignant distemper Secondly he is in thine hand but save his life saith God The matter wherein Satan is limited is life then note That life and death are in the hand of God It is truth that all we have is in the hand of God but God keeps our life in his hand last of all and he hath that in his hand in a speciall manner So David expresses it Thou holdest my soul in life though the soul continue life may not continue there is the soul when there is not life life is that which is the union of soul and body Thou holdest my soul in life that is thou holdest soul and body together So Daniel describes God to Belshazzar Dan. 5.23 The God in whose hand thy breath is and whose are all thy wayes hast thou not glorified The breath of Princes is in the hand of God and the same hand holds the breath of the meanest subject This may be matter of comfort to us in such times as these are times of danger and times of death when the hand of man is lifted up to take thy life remember thy life is held in the hand of God And as God said here to Satan Afflict the body of Job but save his life so God saith still to bloudy wretches who are as the limbs of Satan The bodies of such and such are in your hands the estates of such and such are in your hands but save their lives The life of a man is never at the mercy of a creature though it be a common speech of men when they have a man under them Now I have you at my mercy though some brag as Laban did to Jacob It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt yet God often checks them as he did Laban from so much as speaking hurt Gen. 31.29 but the God of your father spake unto me yester-night saying Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad Creatures though full of love cannot speak good and though full of malice they cannot speak bad if God forbid then much lesse can they do us hurt and least of all hurt our lives if God with-hold David triumphs in his interest in such a God Psal 68.20 Our God is the God of salvation that is of deliverance of outward deliverance for that is
was forced to goe out as a Leper concerning whom the Law was afterwards you know that they should be put out of the Campe or City and it was a Law grounded upon reason and the common light of nature though it had a spirituall signification as given to the Jewes The Septuagint say expresly he sate upon the dung-hill without the City as Lepers were wont to be according to the Law of Moses and as we see executed in that case of Vzziah the King being a Leper he dwelt in a house by himselfe alone and was cut off from the house of the Lord 2 Chro. 26.21 But that Job sate either without the City or upon a dung-hill is only a conjecture and besides the Text. Which way soever we take it it is a great aggravation of Jobs sorrowes Take it for a necessitated sitting in the ashes abroad it inferres that either he was so poore as that he had not a house to be in or that his disease was so contagious that he could not be endured in the house Or take it for a voluntary act that he did choose to sit in ashes it was an aggravation of his affliction for then it notes that he was in the lowest in the saddest condition that can be imagined sitting in ashes being an embleme of extreame sorrow and never used but in times of greatest calamity publick or personall So that here every circumstance is an aggravation of Jobs affliction He was smitten by Satan and he smote hard enough he smote him and he smote him with boyles he smote him with the most malignant kind of boyles he smote him with such boyles all over from the sole of his feet to his crowne and when he was in this condition he had no Nurse no Chirurgion no Physitian to helpe him he was forced to take a pot-sheard to scrape himselfe he had no soft bed prepared to lye on nor as many have thought house to be in but out of the City or out of his house he must and among the ashes upon the dung-hill Lo there he sits What one said of an exact History of a great Prince That surely it was written rather in theory as a pattern or picture of a Prince then according to the truth of a history So we may say of this description of Jobs troubles That surely it was written rather as a studied pattern of mans sufferings then as an accomplisht History of the sufferings of any man yea who almost can goe so farre in imagination as Job went in reall passion But we will passe from the description of his sorrow to some Observations upon them First Here we see That Satan if he be permitted hath a power suddenly to aflict the body with diseases And that is a power farre transcending all the power that is in man Man is able to wound the body of his brother with a materiall instrument but all the Tyrants in the world cannot smite the body with a disease or command a man into sicknesse Though God should say to them as here to Satan I give you leave yet they must leave that to Satan whose helpe is sometime begg'd by envious wretches who would kill their bretheren without a Sword and vex them unseene Man must have a weapon to smite but Satan can smite and kill without a weapon if God say the word Man can spill the blood but Satan can poison the blood He can infect the humours and taint the spirits more subtilly more speedily then the most skilfull poisoner in Rome We shewed before how suddenly Satan can raise commotions in the ayre stormes and tempests there he can doe the like in our bodies for such are diseases in the body as stormes and tempests in the ayre Stormes make as it were a confusion among the Elements and are the distemper of nature diseases make a confusion among the humours and distemper the constitution and spirits of the body It is said of the woman in Luk. 13.16 that Satan had bound her 28 yeares Observe in that the power Satan hath over the body if God give him liberty to exercise it As cruell men can bind in chaines and cast the body into prison for many yeares so Satan can bind the body with a spirit of infirmity as with a chaine Secondly observe this That health and strength of body are a very great blessing You see Satan desires to try Job by taking away this blessing last and he thought this would make Job curse God you may see the value of it by his desire to destroy it Health is the Prince of earthly blessings We say he lives miserably that lives by medicines who to uphold nature is in the continuall use of art How miserably then doth he live whom art and medicines cannot restore to health who is diseased beyond the help of Physick I might mind you likewise from this to remember what fraile bodies we live in even such as have in them the seeds of all diseases Sin indeed is the seed of sicknesse and of death And hence it is that if the humours of the body be a little stirr'd they quickly turne to a disease and this house of clay is ready to dissolve and fall What is the strength of the body that we should trust it or the beauty of the body that we should be proud of it We see in Job how quickly the strength of it is turned into weakenesse and the beauty of it into blacknesse All flesh is grasse and all the goodlinesse thereof is as the flower of the field The grasse withereth and the flower fadeth Isa 40.6 And here likewise note this you that enjoy health of body whose strength yet continues and your selves are free from the bonds of any bodily infirmity while you heare of one smitten with a disease from the crowne of the head to the sole of the feet consider what a mercy you have who have no paine from the crowne of the head to the sole of the feete who have not an aking joynt nor paine so much as in a finger It is like that many of you can say you have this blessing you doe not know what paine in any one member meanes looke upon a man that knew nothing but paine upon a man that had not one member free and prize your blessing Such likewise who have paine and infirmities in one or two or more parts of the body may see in this spectacle cause to blesse God that they have any part free To have but one or but a few sores is mercy sparing mercy when we behold another nothing but a sore Indeed when one member suffers whether in the body naturall or mysticall all the members suffer with it But compassion is not so heavy a burden as passion is And as the sound members sympathize in sorrow with those that are smitten so they that are smitten sympathize in joy with those that are sound The ease of one part mitigates the disease of
say she was one one act is enough to assimilate but it is not enough to denominate Thus much may serve to evince that though we take the words in that worst sense yet it doth not necessarily inferre that Jobs wife was a wicked an ungodly woman which is the objection against that Exposition From the words translated Curse God and die and thus expounded we may observe First That Satan is restlesse and unwearied in this designe to bring the people of God to thinke ill and speake ill of God It is that he laboured for in the carrying on of this whole businesse concerning Job and every stone is turned every way tryed to accomplish this proposed end Secondly In that he perswadeth Job by his wife when he was in this wofull condition to curse God and die Observe That Satan would perswade us to ease our selves of troublesome evills by falling into sinfull evils Job was grievously diseased you see the medicine and the cure that Satan prescribeth Goe sinne saith he curse God and die whereas one of the least evills of sin is worse then all the evills of suffering that can befall us All sorrowes are more elegible then one sin It hath been rightly taught us from Antiquitie that the lowest degree of a lye because sin is not to be made or admitted if that medium could be assured so noble an end for the saving of a world What a father and teacher of lyes then is Satan who directs many a poore soule to save it selfe from or helpe it selfe out of a small affliction by adventuring upon some great transgression Thirdly Curse God and die It is sinfull to wish our own deaths though we are under paines more painefull then death It is sinfull to desire death absolutely we may desire it with submission to the will of God To live is an act of nature but to be willing to live because God wills it is an act of grace And as it is our holinesse to doe the will of God while we live so it is our holinesse to be content to live while we suffer according to his will On the other hand to die is an act of nature but to die because God wills it is an act of grace Christ is said to be obedient unto death because he died in contemplation of Gods decree and in conformity to his good pleasure To die thus is the duty of a Christian and the crowne of all his obedience Satan would have us live as we will and die when we will he tempts us as much to die when we list as to live how we list Satan puts Job upon it peremptorily curse God and die desire or procure thy own death To wish dâ—â—th that we may enjoy Christ it is a holy wish but yet we must not wish that neither absolutely The Apostle Paul Phil. 1.23 desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ yet you see how he qualifies and debates it To wish for death that we may be freed from sinne is a holy wish but yet wee must not wish that absolutely neither we must referre our selves to the pleasure of God how long he will let us conflict with our corruptions and with our lusts with this body of death and sin which we beare about us But to wish for death because our lives are full of trouble is an unholy wish God may yea and hath as much use of our lives in our troubles as in our comforts We may doe much businesse for God in a sick-bed We may doe God as much worke when we are bound hand and foote in a prison as when we are at liberty passive obedience brings as much glory to God as active doth therefore we must not wish for death especially not with an absolute wish because we are under troublesome evils And if it be sinfull to wish for death how wicked is it to procure or hasten death to pull down our house of clay with our own hands because we are under troublesome evills Fourthly Observe further Satan would perswade that death is an end at least an ease of outward troubles Wouldest thou have an end of thy troubles and of thy sorrowes Curse God and die here is the remedy We say indeed of some remedies that they are worse then the disease but I am sure this is Death to ungodly ones it is so farre from being an end or an ease of their troubles that it is to them as Christ speakes in another case the beginning of sorrowes the entrance to eternall death and the very suburbs of Hell Yet how many doth Satan perswade when they are in Jobs case in great extremities that death will be the cure of all their troubles Fifthly Observe That Satan would make men willing to die when they are most unfit to die You see what preparation Satan directs Job unto he biddeth him curse God and die Would not Job thinke you have bin in a fit posture in a fit frame for death when he had bin cursing God Repent and die pray and die humble thy selfe and die beleeve and die take fast hold of Christ who is our life our way to life and die are the counsels and voice of the holy Ghost but Satans language is curse God and die sin and die be impenitent and die blaspheme and die And it is an experienced truth that oftentimes they seeme most willing to die who are most unfit most unready for death you shall see some men venturing yea casting away their lives without feare or wit the whole visible businesse of whose lives hath been nothing else but a working out of their own damnation without feare or trembling They as it were give diligence all their dayes to make Hell and reprobation sure and yet goe out of the world as if they were sure of Heaven This is Satans preparation curse God and dye Lastly Note this That the holiest person is lyable to the most blasphemous temptation One would have wondred that Satan should ever have ventured to suggest such a grosse thing as this to so holy a man as Job But Satan where he hath been often foyled growes impudent and will then suggest such things not because he hopes to prevaile but because he resolves to vex such as he cannot overcome He troubles as much and as many as he can So much of the counsell which Jobs wife gave him reproving him as foolish and over-credulous in holding fast that unprofitable thing his integrity and advising him to be worse then mad or out-ragious in cursing God and dying Let us now consider Jobs holy and wise reply in the tenth Verse But he said unto her Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh what shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evill These words containe Jobs reply wherein two things are considerable First A reproofe Secondly A refutation First He rejects her counsell with a sharpe and wholesome reprehension and then he refuteth her counsell by strong
only begotten sonne that whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish here is the removing of evill but have everlasting life here is the bringing in of good And this is the better part of the blessing So on the other side to have all good light and life removed is the most bitter part of the curse Let darknesse and the shadow of death staine it Darknesse and the shadow of death These words are the fourth branch of the curse upon his day he repeates the former curse but with new additions He had said before let this day be darknesse now he saith let darknesse and the shadow of death staine it The shadow of death The word considered in the composition of it may be translated image of death And because the shadow of a body gives us the image of a body as in the shadow of a man you have the image and proportion of a man in the shadow of a Tree you have the image and representation of a Tree because I say the shadow gives the image of a body therefore the Hebrewes by a Metonymie call an image a shadow So that the shadow of death is such darknesse as is like death the very image of death He was not contented in generall to say let darkenesse staine it but if any would know what kind or degree of darknesse he intends these words expound his meaning to be the worst darknesse that can be Any darknesse is evill but darknesse and the shadow of death is the utmost of evils David put the worst of his case and the best of his faith when he said Psal 23.4 Though I walke in the valley of the shadow of death I will feare no evill that is in the greatest evill I will feare no evill The estate of those men who lived beyond the line of the Gospell and that is a very dolefull place to live in though a paradise for outward pleasure is thus described by the Prophet Isa 9.2 The people that walked in darknesse have seene a great light Jesus Christ they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death upon them hath the light shined Againe The shadow of a thing in Scripture notes the power of a thing and to be under the shadow of a thing is to be under the power of a thing The bramble Judg. 9.15 said unto the trees if in truth yee anoint me King over you then come and put your trust in my shadow that is trust to that helpe which I am able to afford you So likewise to be under the shadow of the Almighty under the shadow of his wings is to be under the power of the Almighty for safety and protection Thus we may conceive it here to be under the shadow of death is to be so under the power or reach of death that death may take a man and seize upon him when it pleaseth Though I walke in the valley of the shadow of death that is though I be so neere death that it seemes to others death may catch me every moment though I be under so many apparances and probabilities of exreame danger that there appeares an impossibility in sence to escape death yet I will not feare Thirdly To be under the shadow of death is to be under the influences of death the influences of death are those feares and doubtings divisions and vexations of spirit those distractions and distempers of mind which fall upon man in times of imminent and unavoidable danger Let the shadow of death staine it that is let it be filled with those feares and cryes and confusions which usually accompany or prepare the way for death Fourthly Let darknesse and the shadow of death staine it that is such darknesse as dwells with death such darkenesse as fills the house of death the grave The grave is a darke house We use to say of that which we would have forgotten let it be buried in darknesse There is no worke in the grave and therefore there needs no light in the grave neither indeed can there be Lastly thus Darknesse and the shadow of death that is deadly darknesse thick stifling darknesse such as is in deepe pits and mines under the earth where vapours and noysome dampes doe many times strike men with death We may here take notice how Job heapes up words words very like in sound and all alike in sense or concurring to make up one sense Such amplifications in Scripture are vehement asseverations As Joh. 1.20 It is said of the Baptist He confessed and denied not but confessed I am not the Christ And those phrases Thou shalt dye and not live I shall not dye but live Thou shalt be below and not above So Job of his day Let it be darkenesse let not the light shine upon it let darknesse and the shadow of death staine it The word which we render staine signifies properly to redeeme a thing either by price or by power to redeeme a thing by paying for it or to redeeme a thing by rescuing of it Hence among the Jewes he that was to redeeme his deceased brothers land and marry the widdow was called Goel from this word as we may reade in the fourth of Ruth So the avenger of blood was called Goel Numb 35.12 because he likewise did redeeme the blood of his brother fetch it back againe as it were by a price in the execution of justice The learned Junius with some others translates according that sense of the Originall word O that darknesse and the shadow of death had redeemed that day or fetched back that day he referres it to the day past upon which he was borne and so takes it for an allusion to the first state of things we know at the first darknesse had dominion over all over all that Chaos or rude matter which God made at first Darknesse saith Moses was upon the face of the deepe Gen. 1.2 Then God gave a command to light saying let there be light ver 3. presently light went forth and rescued the creature from under the power of darknesse Now saith Job here Oh that darknesse and the shadow of death had redeemed that day or fetched againe that day out of the hands of light Oh that darknesse had recovered that which in the beginning was under its power that so my day being wrapt up in darknesse might be without forme and voide But the word is frequently translated and well here to pollute or to staine a thing as Mal. 1.7 Yee offer polluted bread upon mine altar and ye say wherein have we polluted thee And that of lamenting Jeremie They have polluted themselves with blood so that men could not touch their garments Lam. 4.14 So darknesse is said to staine or pollute the day as filthinesse or blood staines and pollutes discoulours and defiles the beauty of a garment Darknesse obscures and blindes the beauty of the most glorious creatures naturall darknesse doth it Suppose you should come into a roome furnished with
dominion of death and subject to that king of terrour Sin is the seed of death and the principle of corruption God doth infants no wrong when they die their death is of themselves for they have the seed of death in them We may affirme in one sense that when infants die they have no losse and we are sure in every sense when they die they have no wrong All death except death to sin is the wages of sin and therefore can be no injury to the sinner Secondly We may observe concerning man in his birth what a helplesse creature man is If I saith Job had been left a little I had bin gone quickly there had been an end of me I could not have helped my selfe if the knees had not prevented me if the brests had not given me suck if I had been destitute of these succours then presently I should have been free among the dead I should have been quiet and gone into silence Thirdly Observe That every step of life stands in need of a step of mercy When the infant is conceived there must be an act of mercy to quicken it an act of mercy to nourish it in the wombe an act of mercy for the birth an act of mercy being borne to take it upon the knee an act of mercy to binde it up an act of mercy to give it suck The beginning of our lives and the progresse of our lives our generation and our preservation call for acts of mercy or else poore creatures as we are we quickly perish and returne unto our dust We owe our lives to God at first and we owe them every moment if he did not renew mercy every moment we could not continue life one moment As it is with our spirituall life so it is with our naturall Our lives are hid with Christ in God Col. 3.3 Of and from our selves we cannot subsist either in grace or nature It followes For now should I have lien still and been quiet I should have slept then had I been at rest These words are an inlargement of the former reason taken from a description of the state and condition of the dead For now saith Job I should have lien still If you should aske me a reason of my former reason why I was so angry with that day or night wherein I was conceived and borne wherein I had that to me unacceptable mercy to be preserved and kept alive This I subjoyne for the reason of it If none of those unwelcome favours or naturall rights had been done me then I had lien still I had been quiet I should have slept I had been at rest Either I should have been as one that never was or I should have been at rest and quiet The argument lyes thus Rest and quiet are desireable things but death in the omission of those succours would have given me rest therefore I desire those succours had been omitted This conclusion is in the 11th and 12th verses which we heard before The assumption is in this 13th verse which he further confirmes in the 6 verses following by an argument which we may thus forme I will prove saith he that in death I should have rest and been quiet and lien still for all conditions and sorts of men are quiet and lie still in death There or in that estate where all degrees and sorts of persons are at rest there sure I should have found rest but in death all sorts and degrees of persons have found rest therefore I should have found rest too Now that all sorts of people lie still and are at rest in death he proves by an elegant enumeration of the severall sorts and conditions of men He makes an argument by way of induction of all or most of the rankes of men First He shewes it in Kings and Counsellours of the earth these men that make such a bussell in the world when once they are dead they are quiet enough And then he shews it in Rich-men and Princes who load themselves with thick clay who toile and moile all their days to heape up and amasse much wealth when these come to the grave ther 's an end of all their labours then they must give over all their pursuite of riches Fourthly He shewes it in children either abortives borne before natures time or borne in full perfection of nature ver 16. Lastly He shewes it in oppressors and the oppressed in prisoners and those that imprison them in the small and in the great in the servants and in their Masters Thus making an innumeration of all these from thence he infers That if all these are quiet when they are in the grave then surely his condition had been so too I should have been quiet and lien still then I should have slept and been at rest We must here take notice that Job speaking of the state of death speakes only in reference to an outward condition and our resting from outward calamities and troubles he doth not handle the point at all concerning mans eternall estate For death is not rest to all sorts of men in that sense Kings and Counsellours and rich men c. may rest from the troubles of this world and goe to a world of everlasting troubles Such a totall rest is the sole priviledge of the Saints Thus only blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their workes follow them Rev. 14.13 When the Saints die they rest from their labours and their works follow them through free-grace in glorious rewards When the wicked die they rest from their labours but their workes follow them through divine Justice in everlasting punishments And Job resting assured of his own eternall rest wishes only a rest from those temporall commotions Further We may observe 4 words used by Job to expresse the same thing First I should have lien still And been quiet there is a second I would have slept there is a third and fourthly Then I had been at rest I should have lien still The word signifies to lie down in any kind and it signifies to sleepe Gen. 19.4 Before they lay downe that is before they went to bed It is applied likewise to the sleepe of death 2 Sam. 7.12 Isa 43.17 They shall lye downe they shall not rise that is they shall die so the next words expound it They are extinct they are quenched as towe And been quiet The word signifieth also to be silent we may put both together then had I lien still and been silent and you know death and the grave are called silence I had been like those that goe downe into silence saith the Psalmist Ps 115.17 that is like those that go down into the grave And Hezekiah in his mourning describes that silence Isa 38.18 The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee I should have slept Sleepe is the image of death and death is more then the image
troubles turne a Pallace into a desolate place so riches and plenty power and peace meeting together in Kings and great men turne desolate places into Pallaces Kings and Counsellours are of such wealth and power that they can alter the most desolate and ruinous places into delicate edifices and stately dwellings Or lastly Which doth best suite with the subject of Jobs discourse or curse in this Chapter He speaking so much of death by the desolate places we may understand Tombes and Sepulchers places of buriall which Kings and Counsellours build to or for themselves And so taken the sence may be given thus as if Job had said if I had died I should have lien in the grave with as much ease and quiet as those great Princes and Kings of the earth who build themselves stately monuments to lie in It would have been as well with me as with any of them though interr'd under stately tombes We know it was an ordinary thing for Kings and great men especially in ancient times to prepare for themselves costly monuments while they lived as houses for their bodies being dead Which grew to such excessive charge among the Romanes that they were forced to make a Law to restraine it The Egyptians bestowed more care and cost in building their tombes then their houses Even Abraham Gen. 23.16 bought him a burying place before he built himselfe a house though while he lived he dwelt in a moveable tent yet he would be as sure as he could of a certaine grave And good Joseph of Arimathea had made himselfe a sepulcher in a rock Math. 27.60 And it is said of Absolom 2 Sam. 18.18 That in his life time he had taken and reared up a pillar that is he had artificially raised a great pile of goodly stones in the Kings dale For he said I have no sonne to keepe my name in remembrance And he called the pillar after his own name Now as this pillar was to keepe his name so he intended it likewise to keepe his body when he should die For it being related in the verse before how as soone as he was slaine they made no more adoe with him but cast him into a great pit in the wood and layed a very great heape of stones upon him The holy Ghost to shew us the vanity of man in preparing for a dead body while he neglects an immortall soule and how God disappoints the vaine conceits of men in supposing to perpetuate their own name and greatnesse The holy Ghost I say to shew this presently subjoynes in the sacred story Now Absolom in his life time c. As if he had said Doe ye observe how this ambitious Prince was buried even tumbled into a pit with a rude heape of stones cast upon him This man had prepared himselfe another kind of monument even a sumptuous pillar c. So that under or by that pillar he had archt a curious vault for himselfe to be buried in called Absaloms place namely his burying place And the word which we have here for desolate places is in Scripture clearely applied to the grave or a place of buriall We have it in Ezek. 26.20 where the Prophet foreshewing the destruction of Tyre speakes from the Lord thus When I shall bring thee downe with them that descend into the pit and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth in places desolate of old There are three words in that verse and they are all Synonima's words of the same signification First The pit Secondly The low parts of the earth Thirdly The desolate places and all these are but severall expressions for the grave or for a place to bury in It is no more but this When I shall bring thee downe even with those that lie buried in the grave So that the word which we translate desolate places being also in other places used for the grave or a place of buriall we may very well expound it so here that desolate places are the graves or sepulchers of Kings and Princes and Counsellours of the earth which we may doe especially because Job treats in this place about death and the state of the dead Now Tombes and Monuments may be called desolate places in two respects First Because when the body is layed in there all company and all friends leave it you shall have a mighty traine following their friend to the grave but there they leave him Kings and Counsellours have stately Funerals but when their subjects or friends favourites or flatterers have brought them to the tombe and opened the doore of the grave they goe no further they will not goe in with them and dwell with their bodies in the dust of death as much as they honour'd or ador'd them when they lived so that they are in desolate places Secondly Graves may be called desolate places because Tombes and Sepulchres were in desolate places they were made in some high Mountaine or caved Valley in some place remote from the company and habitations of the living for in former times they did not bury in Cities or in Townes but in places where few came till they were carried and therefore properly called desolate places It is observed that among the Romans the first Emperour that was buried in Rome was Traian And the law of the twelve Tables did prohibit both the buriall and the burning of the dead within the City So then it is cleare that anciently Tombes and Monuments were erected in desolate places and that great cost was bestowed in building and beautifying of them both which favour and illustrate the exposition given It followes in the Text Or with Princes that had gold who fill their houses with treasure The word Sar a Prince in the Hebrew as in most other languages signifies the chiefe the head the first Some Criticks conceive that our English word Sir comes from it it is very neere in sound and so is the French word Mounsier to this Originall for a Prince or Chiefe Job describeth Princes thus they are such as had gold noting both what the study and indeavours of Princes are namely to lay up gold and likewise what is requisite for them Gold is of great use in a high estate Treasures are necessary for Princes Princes that had gold Therefore Solomon that wise Prince saith of himselfe Eccles 2.8 And he putteth it among his Princely workes I gathered me also silver and gold and the peculiar treasure of Kings When the Wise-men came to Christ the first thing they offered him was gold and they did wisely for he was a Prince gold being the chiefe and as it were the prince of Mettals is a very proper offering for Princes And howsoever wisedome and goodnesse justice and clemency are farre more necessary requisites in Princes then gold yet there is such a necessary conjunction of these two that we find him in the Prophet Isa 3.7 refusing the governement because he was poore Be thou our Ruler say
especially not those who beleeve For in the person of such the Apostle speaketh 2 Cor. 5.2 We know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternall in the Heavens All that rich worldlings and ungodly great ones can say when they die is We know when the earthly house of this Tabernacle shall be dissolved we have a building of man a stately Tombe made with hands and with all the skill of the cunning artificer We have seene it done already or we have taken order in our wills to have it done The beleever erects his pillar in Heaven and his whole life is a preparation for his house which is above And often he settles the businesse so that he can say I know that when this house of my body is taken downe I have a building c. And he can say I know with farre greater assurance then any worldly man who hath sealed it in his will that thus and thus his body shall be entombed It is a sad thing to take care for a rotting carkasse and forget an immortall soule Job having thus paraleld or compared himselfe in death with Kings Counsellours and Princes notwithstanding all their pompous funeralls and curious Tombes passeth as it were in the next verse to the other extreame Verse 16. Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not beene as infants which never saw light As if he had said if any thinke that I have strained too high in making my selfe equall in death with Kings c. yet surely I should have beene as those that never knew themselves to be in this world or as those that the world never knew to be that is As an hidden untimely birth or as infants which never saw light An hidden untimely birth The word Nephel in the Hebrew for an untimely birth comes from Naphal which signifieth to fall downe or to fall off as untimely fruite falls off from a Tree which falling off before it is ripe is unprofitable and uselesse When the mother miscarries her fruit is like the fruit of a tree shaken off and falling downe before it be ripe or in the blooming And the same word is used in the Hebrew to signifie a Giant There were Nephilim Giants in the earth in those dayes Gen. 6.4 and the reason why they are so called is as some apprehend because they were Apostates such as fell off from God from true worship and Religion Or because they did fall upon men as that phrase is applied to cruell men they did fall upon the poore So the word is used chap. 1. ver 15. of this Booke The Sabeans fell upon Jobs Oxen c They who fall from God by impiety will quickly fall upon men by cruelty Or because the dread and terrour of them made men to fall downe for feare before them It is very observable that the same word should signifie an infant of lesse then a span long and a Giant it may be of more then six cubits and a span 1 Sam. 17.4 and both upon equall reason and with equall significancy Further we may take notice that the Hebrewes expresse any dead body or carkasse by the same word the dead body of the oldest man is called Mappeleth from the same roote and reason too in part from which they denominate an untimely birth that never lived a day When the old man dies he falls as well as the newly conceived embryon The one falls off as a blossome from the tree the other as the fruitfully ripe which if you pull it not off must fall off The Greeke word for a dead body and the Latine have the same reason of their derivation namely from falling So saith Job I had been as one of these untimely births that fall to the earth before their time The Apostle Paul saith concerning himselfe 1 Cor. 15.8 I was as one borne out of due time I was an untimely birth Some of the naturalists say that word signifies such abortions as are after the seventh and before or at the fortieth day after conception Others that it signifies those who are borne the eighth moneth which usually as they are untimely so they die Now Paul calleth himselfe an untimely birth to suite the humble thoughts which he had of himselfe with an humble expression of himselfe which reason he seemes to give in the next words ver 9. For I am the least of the Apostles that am not meete to be called an Apostle c. Even as an untimely birth is not fit to be called a birth or because children that are so borne are very imperfect they are lesser and weaker then those of full growth So saith he I am as a poore abortive as a child borne out of due time I am the least of the Apostles and I am lesse then the least of all Saints Ephes 3.8 I am not come to that stature and growth of a timely birth Secondly He calleth himselfe an untimely birth or one borne out of due time probably for this reason because of the suddennesse or violence of his conversion For you know every abortion or untimely birth comes from some suddaine danger into which the mother falleth some straine or violence causeth abortion Paul in this sense was an untimely birth his conversion was a wonderfull violent conversion Christ came upon him of a suddaine whereas the other Apostles were a great while a forming a shaping a fitting to an Apostleship but Paul was as it were in a moment conceived and borne brought forth and perfected an Apostle and so from the suddennesse and violence of his new-birth he may call himselfe an unimely birth But to passe on from that to the words of Job As an hidden untimely birth I had not been Here are two things distinct about this birth First It is called an untimely birth Secondly a hidden birth An untimely birth is called a hidden birth because it is hid from the eyes of others Abortives are unpleasing and undesireable spectacles therefore they are covered and laid by there is no remembrance of their forme or likenesse therefore Salomon speaking of an untimely birth Eccles 6.4 thus describes it He commeth in with vanity and departeth in darkenesse and his name shall be covered with darkenesse As a hidden untimely birth I had not beene An untimely birth is said not to have been A not being is taken two wayes First Strictly for that which never had any life at all and so some interpret this for there are abortions or untimely births before quickning or before there is any life Secondly Not to be is not to subsist or not to live When that which hath lived dies it is said not to be The Prophet brings in Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because they were not Jer. 31.15 that is because they were dead Josephs bretheren pleading before unknowne Joseph tell him thy servants are
twelve bretheren and behold the youngest is this day with his father and one is not Gen. 42.13 that is one is dead So Jacob speakes at the 30th verse of the same chapter Joseph is not c. Hence that answer of the Wise-man to Alexander who demanding of him whether the living or the dead were more in number said The living for the dead are not As infants that never saw the light This clause may be an exposition of the former clause shewing what Job meanes by an untimely birth even an infant that never saw the light Yet all infants that never see the light are not untimely births Infants are often still-borne when their mothers have gone out their time to the last houre before the paines of travaile come upon them And therefore I rather understand this as distinct from the former In the one Job intending such as are borne before time which births are commonly called abortions or miscarriages And in the other those who die in the birth who are commonly called still-borne The word which is here used for an infant signifies properly a weaned infant but it is likewise transferred to signifie an infant dying in the birth which is therefore said never to see the light So Salomon expresseth it too in that place Eccles 6.5 Moreover he hath not seene the Sunne And in allusion to this David when he curseth the plots of wicked men that though they have conceived mischiefe and though they have gone with it a long time and are ready to bring it forth yet in Psal 58.8 saith he let them be that is let their counsels and designes be like the untimely birth of a woman that they may not see the Sunne that is let them be dashed and blasted let them never bring forth their poisonous brood to the hurt and trouble of the world To these saith Job I am sure I should have bin like if not to Kings and Counsellours and had beene as well and all one to me In death untimely births and those that goe downe to the grave as a sheafe of corne that cometh in ripe are all one there is no difference in the grave betweene the infant that never saw the Sunne and him that hath lived to see an hundred recourses of the Sun The speech of Job proceedes to a third sort he strengthens his argument of rest in death I should certainely have had rest in death for in death even they who have been most vexed who have had least rest who have been even restlesse in the world they have found rest in death this he cleares by a further induction in the 17 18 19 verses There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary be at rest There the prisoners rest together they heare not the voice of the oppressour The small and great are there and the servant is free from his master When he had spoken of the rest of death concerning those great and mighty ones and the rest of death concerning untimely births and infants then he speakes of the rest which poore oppressed ones or which wicked oppressours have in death all these have a rest in regard of outward bodily troubles agitations and labours in the grave therefore certainely there I should have been at rest There that is in the grave the wicked cease from troubling True rest and wickednesse never meete rest and the wicked meete but seldome And it is but halfe a rest and it is rest but to halfe a wicked man to his bones in the grave and it is rest to that halfe but for a little time only till the resurrection The word which is here used for wicked is considerable Though every wicked man be a sinner yet every sinner is not a wicked man It is one thing to sin and another thing to be wicked there are divers words in the Hebrew tongue which signifie as it were the divers statures of sinners and the degrees of sinne And the Hebrew which usually expresseth many things by one word doeth here use many words to signifie one thing only differing in degree First A sinner is called sometime Cata that 's the lowest expression noting one that doth misse a marke or his way he aimes at the marke yet misses it he would goe in the right way yet mistakes it or is misled So every man the holiest men are sinners they often misse the marke the white which God sets up though they take their aime and level carefully at it Secondly A sinner is called Peshang which signifieth a willingnesse to sin and an unwillingnesse to obey it signifieth pride in sinning or a sinning from pride which is plaine rebellion Thirdly The word here used and in divers other places signifieth wickednesse in the height and men most active in wickednesse So that when Job saith There the wicked are at rest he meanes those who had beene restlesse in sin who could not sleepe till they had done mischiefe nor scarce sleepe for doing mischiefe He meanes those who had out-run others in the sinfull activity or rather turbulency and unquietnesse of their spirits such as are without peace themselves and seeke to molest and disturbe the peace of others The Prophet describes them to be like the troubled sea which cannot rest Isa 57.20 The proper signification of the word wicked in the Hebrew is the word unquiet vexatious or without rest 1 Sam. 14.47 Wheresoever Saul turned himselfe he vexed the enemy So Job 34.29 And the reason of it is given because men of this height and stature in sin are men of troubled unquiet and restlesse spirits As it notes a height in holinesse and grace to have a kind of unquietnesse upon the spirit till we can doe good and compasse holy designes and purposes when we are not only pious but zealous As David resolves Psal 132.3 4. Surely I will not come into the Tabernacle of my house nor goe up into my bed I will not give sleepe to mine eyes nor slumber to mine eye-lids untill I find out a place for the Lord c. So unquietnesse upon the spirit till it can put sin into act and compasse an evill project notes a compleatenesse in the sinner Sin wakes and workes in them to purpose who cannot sleepe till they have wrought out their sin of these it is properly that Job speakes here these troublers of themselves and troublers of Israel these whom the Lord shall trouble this day or one day There sc in the grave these wicked ones cease from troubling there they have a kind of rest being dead who could not rest while they lived there at least they cease from raging This word Ragaz notes any vehement motion either of mind or body arising from feare or grief or anger or the concurrence of them all As when David heard of the death of Absolom the Text saith 2 Sam. 18.33 The King was much moved c. He was as it were for a time enraged or distracted much troubled
it to enjoy Christ who is life then to live To both these we may referre that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. We that are in this tabernacle groane being burthened they were burthened with sorrowes and burthened with sins while they were in the tabernacle of the body yet saith he it is not that wee would be uncloathed but cloathed upon he did not groane for the grave but for glory not that he might be uncloathed but cloathed with immortality not barely that he might die but that mortality might be swallowed up of life Under these notions we may desire death yet with this caution that for the time of it we referre our selves to the good pleasure of God For what the Apostle James speakes of the inordinate desires and absolute resolves of worldly men about gaining in that or t'other City is by allusion appliable to these spirituall greedy merchants after Heavenly glory chap. 4.13 Goe to now ye that say to day or to morrow we will goe into such a City and continue there a yeere and buy and sell and get gaine c. For that ye ought to say if the Lord will So I may say Goe to now ye that say to day or to morrow we would die for to die to us is gaine Phil. 1.21 and goe to that heavenly City that City having foundations whose builder and maker is God and continue there forever taking in and enriching our selves with that glory which Christ hath bought for that ye ought to say when the Lord will or now if the Lord will On such conditions as these and with this caution we may desire death yea long for death But to long for death only to be ridde of the troubles of this life to desire to lye downe to sleepe in the bed of the grave only to ease our flesh and rest our outward man is sinfull The Apostle saith Acts 20.24 I count not my life deare so I may finish my course with joy But we shall account our lives too cheape if we feare to finish our course with sorrow If we thinke that it is not worth the while to live unlesse we live in outward comforts we exceedingly undervalue our lives when a crosse in our lives makes us weary of our lives This was Jonahs infirmity when he had taken pet about the gourd Chap. 4. he would needs die and he concludeth the matter It is better for me to die then to live and all was because he could not have his will because he was troubled This also was Elijahs infirmity when he was persecuted by and fled for his life from Jezabel 1 King 19.4 He requested for himselfe that he might die and said It is enough now O Lord take away my life for I am not better then my fathers This is an infirmity at the best we ought rather to seeke to God that he would remove the evill from us then remove us from the evill for God hath a thousand doores to let us out of trouble though he doth not open the doore of the grave to let us in there and out of the world He can end our troubles and not end our lives Yet such a wish is much allayed yea in some cases lawfull if we keepe the former caution and say if the Lord will If we referre our selves to the will and good pleasure of God we may desire to be lay'd to rest by death that we may be rid of those paines and evills which we suffer in this life And yet I desire rather to raise the spirits of all above these troubles while they live then satisfie them how they may desire freedome from them by death When Solomon returned and considered all the oppressions that are done under the Sunne and beheld the teares of such as were oppressed and they had no comforter and on the side of their oppressors there was power but they had no comforter Then he praised the dead which are already dead more then the living which are yet alive Eccles 4.1 2. that is he pronounced the dead to be in a better condition then the living Yet know that Solomon in this place speakes the words of meere naturall reason not of divine reason For he speakes though with a divine Spirit yet in the person of a naturall man Naturall reason saith it is better to die then live under oppressions but divine reason saith there is more honour to be gained by living under oppressions then there is ease to be attained by dying from under them To beare a burden well is more desireable then to be delivered from a burden Especially if while we are bearing we can be doing doing good I meane and I meane it especially if we can doe publike good A Christian should be content yea he should rejoyce in suffering much evill upon himselfe while he can be doing any especially if he can doe much good to others A graciously publike spirit will triumph over personall troubles and labours so long as he sees himselfe a blessing or a helpe to the publike and though he longs to die for himselfe and to be with Christ which is better yet he is loath to die so long as he can say with blessed Paul Neverthelesse to abide in the flesh is more needfull for you or others Phil. 1.24 When a Heathen Emperour Caesar said he had lived long enough whether he respected Nature or Honour Tully the Orator answered him well But you have not lived long enough for the Common-wealth Much more may we say when we see able and godly men longing for death because they have lived long enough whether they respect common Nature or their own Honour But you have not yet lived long enough for the Church of God and for the common good of his people We should be willing to live so long as God or his people have a stroake of worke to be done which our abilities and opportunities fit us to doe In this sense A living Dogge is better then a dead Lion Eccles 9.4 That is it is better to live though we are the meanest working for God then die or be dead though we have bin the chiefest I inlarge this the rather because of the present troubles and the infirmity of our flesh which sometimes is ready to envy those who die because we live in sorrow and is not satisfied with this that our soules are here shelter'd from death and under the covert of Christ unlesse our bodies also may be sheltred in death and lye under the covert of the grave So much to that question Let us note something from the words themselves Which long for death and it cometh not and dig for it more then for hid treasures Observe first That Many afflictions to our sense are worse then death They long for death because they are in misery It is said and it is a truth O death how bitter art thou to a man that is at ease in his possessions And there is a truth also in
that God takes us out of the wombe a great support to faith in greatest troubles p. 391. Vntimely birth what and why so called p. 423. Bitter day is a day of trouble p. 360. Bitternesse of soule notes the deepest sorrow p. 442. Blasphemy what pa. 218. The Holiest persons subject to the most blasphemous temptations p. 286. Blessing three wayes 1. Man blesses man 2. Man blesseth God 3. God blesses man what p. 117. All successe from the blessing of God p. 119 120. God delights to blesse those who are laborious ib. The blessing of God is effectuall p. 121. To blesse God what 213. The best outward blessing may be turned into a crosse p. 273. Bodies of the Saints abused and tortured here on earth p. 255. Booke of Job who supposed the pen-man p. 5. The subject principall p. 6. Collaterall p. 7.8 The parts and divisions of it p. 8 9 c. The scope and uses of it p. 10 11 c. C CAlling Every man ought to have a calling p. 120. Cattell the riches of the Patriarchs and why p. 38 c. Chemarims Idolatrous Priests why so called p. 360. Chrildren are blessings p. 34. A greater blessing then riches ib. The more children the more blessing ib. 35. Best to have most sons ib. To have daughters and sons the compleate blessing ib. Many Children no hindrance either of piety or equity p. 36. Love and concord among children is the fathers speciall blessing p. 48. Lawfull delight is to be permitted our children p. 54. Children at full age not out of their parents care p. 55. Childrens soules chiefely to be cared for ib. Parents ought to pray in speciall for every child p. 65. Jobs losse of his children his greatest losse shewed in 5. considerations p. 167 168. Christ His presence makes any place or condition comfortable p 431. That the heart of a beleever is never at rest but in Christ p. 475 476. Cloud what it is and what it signifies in Scripture p· 358. Conception of children the worke and blessing of God p. 389. Counsellours Their power to hurt or doe good among Kings and Princes p. 411. Creatures the best creatures left to themselves will undoe themselves p. 83. Cursing What is meant by cursing God in the heart p. 70 71 c. Cursing hath three things in it p. 131. What to curse God to his face p. 133 218. What it is to curse a thing or person p. 327. A curse containes all evill as blessing all good p. 328. Man is but the minister of any curse p. 330. In what sense the irrationall creatures are capeable of a curse p. 331. D DArkenesse Divers sorts p. 347. A darke day is a sad day p. 348. It staines the beauty of the creature p. 357. Day What it is to regard a day p. 350. Death Suddaine death no argument of Gods disfavour p. 173. Death may surprize us eating therefore be holy in eating p. 173 174. Death shakes us out of all our worldly cloathing p. 200. Death It is sinfull absolutely to wish our own death though we are in paines more painefull then death p. 284. Satan perswades that death is an end of all troubles p. 285. He would make men willing to die when they are most unfit to die p. 285. Death is the totall rest of the godly only p. 400. The outward rest of all p. 403 Death In death we have a 4. fold rest p. 403. Death is the sleepe of the body p. 404. Why so called p. 405. Their opinion refuted who say the soule sleepes when the body dies p. 404 405. No power or policy can prevent death p. 417 436. In death all are equall ib. In what sense we may desire death p. 447. Many afflictions to our feeling are worse then death p. 450. Death finds some before they looke for it others looke for death and cannot find it p. 451. Not to die is a punishment to some in this life and it will be an everlasting punishment to all the damned p. 451. Degrees in grace God hath servants of al sizes p. 103. We ought not to set up our rest in a low or lower degree of grace p. 118. Desire It is not alwayes a mercy to have our desires granted p. 137 138. It is an affliction to nature to be debar'd of what it desires though the thing desired be destructive to nature p. 452. True desires produce endeavours ib. Proportionable to the strength of desire is the strength of endeavour ib. Desires obtained fill with joy p. 455. And with joy proportionable to those desires p. 456. Devills not in fullnesse of torment yet p. 89 90. Diseases Satan can smite the body with diseases if God permit him p. 266. No disease can weare out the markes by which Christ knowes us p. 314. Division and disunion a great curse p. 362. E ENd We should resolve upon our end before we undertake any action p. 310. A wise man proposes sutable ends i. e. Man may propose his end but he cannot reach it p. 307. Eschewing evill more then the not committing of evill p. 28 29. A godly man doth not only forbeare but eschew sin all sin and all the occasions of sin p. 33. Evill of sinne Why sin called evill p. 28. Satan would perswade us to ease our selves of troublesome evills by committing sinfull evills p. 284. Affliction in what sense called evill p. 291. Evill of punishment or affliction considered as coming from God may be borne with more quietnesse p. 292. Because we receive all good from God it is equall that we should patiently beare evill p. 294. Exposition of Scripture very usefull p. 1 2. Exposition of Scripture to the heart the sole priviledge of Christ p. 2. Exposition of Scripture by our lives most excellent p. 2 3. Eye How the sight of the eye wounds the heart either with sin or sorrow p. 393. Also that the sight of the eye affects the heart with joy p. 394. F FAce of God what p. 142. Favour of God makes our worst outward troubles comfortable p. 350. The blessing of the creature depends wholy on the favour and respect which God shewes it p. 351. Feare of God taken two wayes both described p. 27. Moral honesty without the feare of God commends us not to God p. 31. Feare containes every grace p. 32. Feare keepes the life cleane p. 32. What it is to feare God for nought p. 105 c. Whether it be lawfull in times of comfore to feare troubles p. 466. Divers sorts of feare p. 467 c. To feare a feare what it imports p. 466. Holy wisedome bids us feare so as to prepare for evill in our best dayes p. 469. The more we thus feare the lesse we shall feele troubles p. 471. Feasting is lawfull p. 49. Seven rules given about feasting p. 50 c. Feastings anciently in the night p. 364 Fire of God why so called p. 160. Foole and wicked the same p. 287. Low thoughts of God and
they who rejoyce in soule would even willingly be rid of their bodies they are above the body So they who are bitter in soule are desirous to be ridde of their bodies the body is a burden when the soule is bitter This bitternesse of soule caused those bitter complaints before and now this vehement expostulation Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery Wherefore We are apt to thinke there is no reason for that for which we can see no reason Job was in a darke condition and could not see the reason and therefore almost concludes there was none When we are posed we thinke all the world is posed too If we cannot interpret and expound the dealings of God we thinke none can nay in such cases some are ready to thinke at least to speake as if they thought that God himselfe can scarce give a good account of them This wherefore goes through the earth and reaches Heaven Tell me O my friends shew me O my God Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery Why Job there may be many reasons many answers given to this wherefore a man should be in light though he be in misery and why his life should be continued though his soule be in bitternesse What if God should appeare and tell thee It shall be thus and the reason of it is because I will have it so Is not that therefore answer enough to any mans wherefore The will of God is reason enough for man and ought to be the most satisfying reason If God say I will have life remaine in a man that is bitter in soule that man should say Lord it is reason I should because it is thy pleasure though it be to my own trouble Yet it is but seldome that God makes his will his reason and answers by his bare preâ—â—gative He hath often given weighty reasons to this quaerie First The life of nature is continued that the life of grace may be encreased Again Such live in sufferings That they may learne obedience by the things which they suffer God teaches us by his workes as well as by his word his dealings speake to us And It is as great an act of holinesse to submit our selves to the will of God in his workes as it is to the will of God in his word Another reason of this wherefore may be this God sets up some as patternes to posterity he therefore gives the light of life to some that are in misery to shew that it is no new nor strange thing for his Saints to be darkenesse And what if God doth it to magnifie the strength of his own power in supporting and the sweetnesse of his mercy when he delivers such bitter soules Further observe first That The best things in this world may come to be burthens to us See here a man weary of light and life light one of the most excellent creatures that God made the most excellent next to life yea life the best the most excellent thing in nature both these become burthensome How gladly would Job have bin rid of light how gladly rid of his life Consider then how burthensome other things which at the best are burdens may be unto you If you heare a soule complaining of light and life and why are these given me when I am in misery Then what comfort thinke you will honour give you or what comfort will riches give you or what comfort will beauty give you in such a condition as makes you weary of light and life What comfort will sin give you what ease will your lusts give you in such a condition as makes you weary of light and life I never heard of any of the Saints that were troubled at any time with their grace or weary of the favour of God I never heard any of them say why is grace given to one that is in misery or the light of Gods countenance to the bitter in soule I never heard any say wherefore is faith given to a man that is in misery or hope and patience to the bitter in soule grace was never a burden to any man under greatest burdens or unsavoury to the bitterest soule when you are weary of all other things in the world these will be your supports Therefore labour after those things which you shall never be weary of even after those things which will be more pleasant to us then ever light was when light shall be to others more troublesome then ever darknesse was to any let us labour after those things which will be more sweet to us then ever life was when life shall be to others â—ore bitter then ever death was to any Secondly observe It is a trouble to possesse good things when we cannot injoy them Would you know how Job spake here as one weary of light and life It was not under the notion of light and life as if he had been weary of these in themselves but it was because he could not enjoy these Solomon assures us Prov. 25.20 that As hee that taketh away a garment in cold weather and as vineger upon Nitre so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart Musick to one that is in sorrow doubles his sorrow why because he cannot enjoy the musick a heavy heart can worse intend musick then a heavy eare only those things which we can injoy in the use of them please in the possessing of them Of all temporalls the possession and enjoyment may be separated but for spiritualls the very possession of them is joy therefore enjoyment their presence is a pleasure and therefore their presence shall ever please We may distinguish between their use and their comfort but we can never seperate them One thing further When Job saith Wherefore is light given and life given The meaning of it is wherefore is light continued and wherefore is life continued for he speakes of himselfe and others that had light and were alive and yet he saith wherefore is light given c. From this we may learne That Every act of continuance of good things to us is a new act or deed of gift to us Mercy is given every moment it is enjoyed not only is a new mercy and a renewed mercy a new gift but continued mercy is a gift and a new gift life is a new gift every houre of time we live on the earth and glory will be a new gift every minute of eternity we shall live in Heaven Which long for death and it cometh not and dig for it more then for hid treasures This 21. verse doth further explicate who are the bitter in soule even such as long for death when a soule from naturall principles finds a sweetnesse in death that soule is in bitternesse Our affliction and our misery is indeed worme-wood and gall as the Church complaines Lam. 2.19 when death is as honey and long'd for as the honey-combe There is bitternesse in the death of the body and yet some are so
bitter in soule that they account the very bitternesse of death sweetnesse They say not as Agag 1 Sam. 15.32 Surely the bitternesse of death is past but O that the sweetnesse of death would come To be rid of sin makes us long for death spiritually to be rid of paine makes us desire death naturally therefore he saith the bitter in soule long for death The word which we translate by longing signifieth a very vehement desire as you know in our tongue to long for a thing is the highest and hottest acting of desire after a thing It signifieth properly to gape or to breathe Hence by a Trope it signifieth strong desire because they who desire a thing much are said to gape or breath after it just as an hungry man gapes after meate wheresoever he sees it and his mind runnes upon it when he cannot see it that is the force of the word Hence also the word is used in Scripture to note the strong actings of faith and vehement expectations of hope in God when the soule is raised up mightily to beleeve the word of promise then it longs after and opens its mouth wide as it were to receive the thing promised As in Isa 8.17 I will waite upon the Lord who hides his face from the house of Jacob and I will looke for him The Prophet Hosea applies the word to robbers and theeves who stand watching and longing for the traveller and looking at every turning chap. 6.9 As troopes of robbers waite for a man Yet further to cleare this we may take notice that in the Hebrew there are two words which come from this roote whereof the one signifieth the Palate of the mouth because the palate is the part affected with the tast of such meates as we long for Hence we say the mouth waters after such or such a pleasing dish The other word signifies a Fish-hooke and the reason is double either because those hookes are pleasantly baited which when the fish sees he longeth after it and greedily swallowes it downe Or because when the angler hath cast in the hooke he is in great expectation waiting and looking earnestly when the fish will be enticed and bite By all these uses of the Originall word we may collect the exceeding intensivenes of that desire which is here exprest by longing for death They long for death even as a hungry man longeth for any meate or as a woman with child longeth for some speciall meate as a fish longs for the baite or as an angler longeth till the fish bites or as a beleever which as it is the most spirituall so the most ardent desire of all desires to have any promise fulfilled upon which he hath pitch'd his faith and anchors at by hope Which long for death and it cometh not that is it cometh not so soon as they would have it for death will come at one time or other but death doth not come at their time or their pace It cometh not in the Hebrew it is only thus which long for death and it is not we supply it cometh not And dig for it more then for hid treasures To illustrate the greatnesse of this desire after death he adds a similitude of those who seeke for treasures if there be any naturall desire more strong then that of a woman with-child or a longing woman it is the desire of a covetous man the desire of gaine or treasure covetousnesse is the strongest appetite Observe but what a gradation there is in this expression to set forth the greatnesse of their desire after death they doe not only long for it but they dig for it digging you know is no ordinary labour it is an extraordinary worke a hard labour As longing is a strong desire so digging is strong labour hard labour And then it is no ordinary digging neither but digging for a treasure men will dig hard for treasure you see men will dig hard for a stone for iron for coales how then will they dig for a mine of gold or silver A man will dig the earth for a little money but when a man diggeth hoping to find money in the earth that will make him worke indeed now they dig after such a manner And beyond that he saith they dig for it as for hidden treasure that 's a further degree of their endeavour after it That which we translate hidden treasure is but one word in the Hebrew It signifies any hidden thing especially treasures because treasures use to be hid or close layed up And there is a two-fold hiding of treasures There is a naturall hiding and there is an industrious and artificiall hiding There is a naturall hiding so treasures are hid that lie in the bowels of the earth they are naturally hid Then treasures are hid by industry and by art when we are afraid we shall be spoiled of our treasures or that they shall be taken away then there is a hiding them and often a digging to hide them in the earth As now in these times of spoile and violence if a rich man heare that those spoilers are nigh he presently hides his treasure Now either as robbers digge and search for treasures industriously hid or as miners dig and search for treasures naturally hid so saith Job with such earnestnes doe these dig for death There is one thing here to be resolved by way of question before we come to the Observations Namely whether it be lawfull to wish for or to desire death Job here proposeth such as long for death Is it lawfull to desire death doth he speake here only de facto of a thing which some doe or of that which may be done I answer first That death in it selfe is no way desireable and it is not an object of desire We cannot desire that for it selfe which is an enemy or destructive unto us If any should desire death as death or under the notion of death they should desire that which is destructive that which is their enemy so the Apostle calls death 1 Cor. 15. The last enemy which shall be destroyed is death Death is an enemy therefore as death no man can desire it Indeed many have desired death but still we find somewhat else at the bottome of that desire But what bottome or ground makes the desire of death lawfull I answer First It is a holy desire of death if we desire death to be free from sin when the soule saith thus because I see only the end of living will be the end of sinning therefore I long for death that I may sin no longer Secondly It is lawfull to desire death that we may have more full communion with Christ the Lord of life I desire to be dissolved saith Paul but why not that he desired dissolution but that he might be with Christ Phil. 1.23 Christ is life and Christ is our life It is better to enjoy life then to live How much better then is